Honestly, this review seemed like more of a collection of grudges against the CGI-heavy sci-fi/superhero movies of the last decade or so. And if you hate ‘em that much, gosh, it must be a real pisser to have your job. Me, I’m looking at this to scratch the same itch I get from both 80s William Gibson cyberpunk (not to mention Walter Jon Williams’ Hard Wired) and the Mass Effect games. I sure as shit won’t be going to see Ender’s Game.
I don’t think it’s so much a standard as a sigh of relief.
That is, “better than Transformers” as in “Thank God, this is better than Transformers, which means I’m not accidentally watching Transformers right now.”
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What should have been different about it? I mean, it’s a movie about a vigilante who fights criminals, there’s going to be a certain amount of violence inherent in the premise.
This is a genuine, non-driving trollies question — how is Die Antwoord misogynistic? I don’t really care for them enough to follow them particularly closely, but yeah, I know who they are; and I’ve seen two of their videos.
I took it to mean that an overabundance of violence was bad for storytelling. I assumed it wasn’t speaking in a “moral panic” sense.
Whether movie violence is on the rise is hard to measure. But the sheer amount of violence that can be portrayed has become staggering. I haven’t seen Man of Steel yet, but my sis told me her experience: watching the battle in Metropolis was downright traumatic. There goes another skyscraper, then another, then another. The body count of those few minutes alone had to have been in the hundreds of thousands. Why? Because a bunch of skyscrapers getting blown up in photorealistic fashion is captivating, and they had the technology to do it. No explanation is given for why Superman didn’t make every effort to move the battle somewhere less populous.
On a smaller scale, I saw Hobbit 1, and the scene where they were captured by the orcs and had to escape? Wow. Just… there’s something almost campy about the level of violence depicted. Fifteen dwarves surf a chunk of wooden bridge down to the bottom of a ravine… with no obvious injuries or dropped equipment. And things like this happen over and over and over again, for the whole of the battle. My mind kept going, “Shoulda killed two, shoulda broken a hip there, shoulda cracked Bombur’s skull, how’d Kili keep a hold of his shield…” I haven’t been disappointed by a fight scene since Matrix’s Burly Brawl.
And why is there such over-the-top, unbelievable violence? Because they had the technology and the budget to do it, but not the common sense to hold back.
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I was pretty luke-warm about this movie but after this review I think I will definitely have to see it. All snarkiness aside it was an excellent review. I might be the only “sci-fi” fannish type person that thought District 9 was an absolute piece of predictable garbage. Now Matt Damon and Jodi Foster would normally get me in the front door, I’m sure this movie will be as horrible as I imagine it to be, but it couldn’t be as bad as all the other sci-fi type movies that I’ve seen this summer. Now Oblivion was actually better than I expected and Pacific Rim was tolerable except for the typical ra-ra-speech that seems to appear in every fantasy science-fiction film of late. Snow White and the Huntsmen…if I had to listen to that ‘inspirational’ speech by Snow White I would have thrown down my weapons, stripped off my armor and walked away.
Yes the movie will be horrible. Yes I will curse loudly that I will never see another movie again in the movie theater. BUT it will not be because of violence. Humanity was born and bred for violence. We are a violent race. Just look to our long history and nothing has changed. You are fooling yourself if something has changed because of “recent” events. Violence gets us off. In movies or in person in gets our juices flowing. You might hate yourself for how it makes your feel. Embrace your savagery. You’ll be a happier person. And you might like a few more movies as well.
Of course I’d rather read than watch this movie. Which is exactly what I plan on doing right now.
My problem with giant stupid SF movies isn’t that they exist, it’s that they poison the well for thoughtful SF. The morons in charge in Hollywood don’t even know the latter even exists. There’s 100 years of award winning SF sitting on shelves, and basically only PK Dick gets made into movies, besides the silly fantasies of the hacks who call themselves Hollywood writers. I spent my youth having my mind blown by great SF, and that happens in a theater at best once a decade. Rule out the cheap writer’s crutches of time travel, amnesia and the evil twin/body-snatcher, and it’s way less than that.
I’d like to see James Cameron make James Blish’s novella Surface Tension, about microscopic aquatic humans living in puddles on a remote planet that struggle against ravenous rotifer worms and build a “spaceship” to crawl to the next puddle. Never happen of course, no explosions.
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Well yes, Pacific Rim completely ignores the most important part of the Giant Monster genre. You have to have a little kid discover and then try and make friends with the monster: opining that, even though he’s a 70 ft high, flame-throwing lizard, perhaps the creature is just lonely and is looking for a friend. Without that moral centre it’s all just empty spectacle.
I hated The Iron Man when I read it at school. Boooooring. The last thing I want my giant stompy robot to do is make friends with a dumb kid.
I remember one of the exercises following reading it was to draw the Man, and I got in trouble because mine had guns on it.
Guess he just suffered in comparison to Transformers back in the early 80s, although now I think about it, I always disliked Buster Witwicky and stupid Bumblebee.
I’d been hoping this would be a good movie, since it’s starring Matt Damon, whom I respect for his history of political activism, and the premise of the movie lends itself to all sorts of exploration of class, “gated communities”, the role of the state in enforcing privileges, etc. It’s easy enough to do that in a heavy-handed and clumsy way, of course, and it seems as if that’s how the reviewer perceived it. One review isn’t definitive, of course, but I don’t really expect much from Hollywood, anyway.
The Bechdel Test does seem quite relevant, given that the trailers and promotional materials for the movie emphasize the importance of the character played by Jodie Foster; as she’s apparently the chief antagonist and a counterpoint to Matt Damon’s character, we’d expect she’s going to be on the screen a lot and have a significant number of lines of dialogue. As a head of state, you’d expect her to have serious conversations with other people, and usually not about her personal relationships. All other things being equal, there’d be a 50% chance that any person she speaks to would be a woman. It rather depends upon how many other characters she actually interacts with – if she only actually talks to the Dragon and the Hero, then it’s not a big deal. If she talks to a lot of characters – if, say, there are several other high-level government officials, some journalists, some political opponents she talks to, then it’s problematic if none of them are women.
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Nothing is worse than a movie that’s “not for you”.
If someone who fetishized diapers complained that the vanilla porn they rented didn’t include diaper play, they’d sound sort of absurd.
We all know that there are people who want to see that, and most of us have no problem with their tastes, but there are things that most people would rather see, and I don’t blame movie makers for focusing on those things.
(crazy jerk-headed tangent coming)
Which is exactly why efforts to insist that other people’s fantasy worlds, whether they be movies, comics, video games, porn, or MLP episodes, should reflect your personal ideals are so wrong-headed. If you want creators to create things perfect for you, give them a compelling reason (ie cash, not moral rectitude under your belief structure).
The only thing you’re ever really complaining about is that other people (and lots of them) don’t care about the things you do, or at least want to get their jollies without worrying about your ideals.
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I wouldn’t go so far as all that.
Violence is just “interesting”, as is sex, as is money, as is loss, as is charisma, as is duty/betrayal, as is fear, as is “us v them”…
There aren’t many entertainment options out there that don’t leverage one or more of these primal cues to get our attention, and if they do avoid them, the entertainment is usually niche. That’s because these things work on a more fundamental level than say, typography or parliamentary procedure.
To discard these things is to discard humanity in favor of purposeful training.
everything that sucks about reviews these days
Not in a world where Red Letter Media exists.
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Having only seen the trailer, the review seems fine.The reviewer is obviously sick of Hollywood. I’m fine with that.However, I am surprised at the amount of ‘butthurt’ that humans are apparently typing in response. (e.g. “…pseudo intellectual/brander/advertiser view, thanks.” “Blechdel test, give a break.” Really? That’s the best you can do? The first quote strained itself out of the realm of ‘sense’, and no, you do not deserve to be given a break. These butthurt-folk are either intentionally presenting the white-guy trope, or just stumbling across it). It’s a movie review, for a movie with Matt Damon as Happy-Hero-In-Teh-Future, not the kind of information that someone using both hemispheres of the brain (at once) will misunderstand. Again, I’m just noting my surprise at the intensity of response that people are showing to the reviewer, as well as to parts of the review (e.g. general derision towards the use of the Bechdel test).
More importantly, the trailer seems to show Blomkamp as a subtler Verhoven regarding how they present our relationship with power and technology via satire. Also, the good ship Elysium immediately reminded me of Freeside, of Neuromancer fame (how I envisioned Freeside, anyway). Thanks for the review and the interesting comments!
Yeah! Fk this guy! He should love what you love, man, unconditionally, because it like exists and shit. Some guy you like made something and you’re looking forward to it so like everyone else should too, and just shut up about it already, totally. This guy you like, he like, says things perfectly and does things brilliantly. The. Fking. End. Word. I mean this reviewer he’s being negative, but also serious? Like not positive, but NEGATIVE, and also SERIOUS, I mean is this like satire or something? I think so!!! This reviewer should, like, dig different things at the same time and then he could be positive about everything and stop all this weird comical negativity that barely has meaning if someone can like everything all the time which everyone totally can. If this reviewer had anything real to say he’d just go comment on someone else’s attempt to review something and be all pretentious about shit and that would be like so much better. Like you. You rock hard. Down with all people with long-form opinions that aren’t you! F**k 'em!
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The cherry on top for me was 'GMO popcorn"
OOOGA-BOOGA PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THE MONSTERS OF THE MODERN AGE!
ps I’d give this review a D+, feels too much like a AV Club application that’s too senseless to be accepted.
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still a standard though
I’ve explained why I think the Bechdel test is bad criticism when applied to a single movie, particularly a pulpy piece of genre science fiction about a one man fighting against the system.
As for the brander/advertiser remark, I just find it funny that someone who uses his writing powers for evil in service of marketers and advertisers, namely the writer of this review, seems to think movie violence is the greater ill.
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The Bechdel test isn’t for judging the quality of any individual movie, it’s for showing just how incredibly male-centered the movie industry is. A few movies failing the Bechdel test isn’t a problem. The vast majority of major movies failing it is a problem.
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This is not a joke, by the way: Apparently, Blomkamp is working on a “science fiction comedy” with Die Antwoord.
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